LA lawyer nominated to 9th US Circuit Court

A Los Angeles lawyer and former federal prosecutor has been nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

President Barack Obama nominated 44-year-old Paul Watford to fill the vacancy created by the death of Judge Pamela Rymer last month.

He would be the second African American on the current San Francisco appeals court.

The San Francisco Chronicle (
http://bit.ly/rhJ9oO
) says Watford attended University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA law school. He was a law clerk for 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

He was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles for three years before joining the firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, where he is a partner specializing in appellate law.